Transcripts
1. Intro to Realistic Flower Painting: Hi there. I'm so
happy you're here. My name is Nitti Nambe, and I'm a watercolor
artist with a passion for painting delicate,
realistic florals. Over the years, I have been honored to win the camel
Color competition, and my work has
been exhibited in multiple galleries
in United States. It's been an amazing journey, but what I truly love is helping others fall in
love with watercolor stew. This class is designed
specially for beginners. If you have ever
felt overwhelmed by watercolor or
unsure where to start, you are in a right place. In this class we'll paint a realistic pink flower
together step by step. You can follow along with the reference photo I have provided in the
resources section. Or if you prefer, you can feel free to
choose your own resource. And there are unsplashed
pexels, pixaba great resources. Just make sure that the image is high resolution and
visually compelling. My goal is to empower you to choose simple subjects
as a beginner. You can create small and
manageable paintings at the start of your
watercolor journey. This not only helps
you build confidence, also lets you grow your
art portfolio quickly. We cover everything
from basic tools and materials to essential
watercolor techniques like wet on dry, layering, choosing the
right color and tones. I will break down everything
in clear beginner friendly way so you feel supported
every step of the way. By the end of this class, you will have your own
beautiful floral painting and hopefully a lot of confidence in your
watercolor skills. Grab your brushes, download
the reference photo. If you would like to
use mine, this one, you can use that or you
can choose your own and let's create something
beautiful together. I hope to see you in the class and let's
create beautiful, stunning botanical
artwork together.
3. Project: Guys, so this is the picture that we
are planning to draw. As you can see, I have taken
this picture on my own. I went outside in
the neighborhood and found these lovely flowers. So we see there is flower here, here, here, here, and then these are the
branches and twigs. So what I'm thinking is
that I'm going to draw. This flower, this
flower, I think, yeah, I like these too, because it has some,
you know, shadow. So there is contrast,
there is contrast. And this looks beautiful to me. Eye catching. This is
a little bit blur, and this is a little bit far. So let's start with this. Okay, so I draw this here
in my notebook right there. Looking at this. This is a reference picture, and I will attach this picture with the
resources of the project. And let's see how to
go about drawing this. So let me bring here. Okay. So let's see. I started with started with
this outer shape here. So I drew this. Then I
went like this here. And I'm not trying
to be perfect here. You know, I'm using
my creative freedom. So you can also do that. And when we are drawing, we are allowed to, you know, use our creative freedom. So that's what I'm seeing
and I'm drawing here. I go outside and I
draw the outline. Then I'm looking at, you know, which are
the darker shades. I see some darkness here, some darkness here, here. So I made this area darker. I see some dark shadow here, so I'm going to try to, you know, render
this darkness here. Just to understand, right, to understand, you know, the shading that we'll be doing. So here, I see it's pretty dark. There is a fold, and
then right here. Okay, so and then there is a
little bit of darkness here. Okay. So there we have
our first flower. Same approach I took. I tried to first outline here. And I went out and drew
the outer layer like that. And then here, I'm going to see, I see darker shade here. So I'm going to try
to make it here, and then I see some
darkness here, so I'm drawing it here. And let's see. Yeah. Yeah, it's darker here. So now I know that these are the areas
which are going to be dark, and I see it darker
over here as well. So now I have a
mental note that, you know, um, what are the shades I'm
going to be working. So now here, and I just drew
the branch looking at this. Like it's very simple.
You go and, you know, a little bit shaky hand and
you'll be able to draw it. Just look here, start,
look, and start. And let's see this curve, so we can probably make it
a little bit curvy here. And there we have it. This part. Okay, here. So like that, we have a sketch ready. Now, let's start and
draw start the painting.
4. Drawing the Sketch on Watercolor Paper: Okay. So let's look at the
photograph once again. I took a printout and
we have it right here. I'm going to draw it now. I see the branch
going like that. And like that, there is another small twig coming out here and we have a fork here. When I say fork, means it's divided into three
parts right there. And this is a third part. Okay, so this is our
first flower going outwards and Ditto, tutto. Alright, and we go like that. I see darling and let's go. D. Like that. And then I see there's
a line going over here. And then it's like that. And I see some this
and see like that. And it comes towards here. See it going down and like that. Then I see some here
and see this line line. All I'm trying to see is lines. So wherever the
line is following, I'm trying to focus there. Here and here. This is my basic outline. Now let's get into the details. So now I see it. There is a line
going here and here, and then I see there
is another line, and it goes like this and
this and I see like that. Then I see another line like
that. Something like that. And I see there is some Yep,
right there, like that. Okay. Now we see here. Okay, and then I
see a line here. Okay. And another
one. Like that. So there we have
a basic outline. Now moving on to the next flower and this one is something like this and this bottom
tweak is going here, here, here and now. See the fold, and
then I see this. This, see it going down. I see it coming up like that. See da, da, and like that. Okay? There we go and
see the fold here. I see kind of a line here. Another one here and see some shadow area here. Okay. And I see Shia, then I see that. And I see Something like that. Okay, so there we
have our basic shape, and I see this part. So we got something to work So now that we have our sketch,
let's start painting.
5. Paint First layer of Petals Wet on Dry : Right. So now we have
our sketch already. This is all we wanted
to draw in this one. And let's look at this. I'm going to see what
color should I use? I think this color from Windsor
and Newton purple lake. Looks like we can
work with this. I see some orange shade here. So maybe this
cadmium orange hue. I see some reddish tone, so I'm going to take
some cadmium red. And let's see, permanent, Rose. I want to keep this color handy, so we might use it. Okay. So let's put it
away and start working. So here's my palette. I have taken the colors here. These are our colors,
Cadmium orange hue, dim red deep hue, permanent rose and purple lake. All right, I'm going to keep my colors on my right hand side and Okay so now I have my jug of water. I have number four brush
here, round brush. I also have number three by
zero and number one brush. So these are the three brushes that I will be using, okay? This one is super fine. See how thin it is. This one is not that fine, medium, and this one is bigger. So we have small,
medium, and large. Okay. Let's start working. I'm thinking to start
with the lightest color. So you're going to take our purple lake here and add some water
here. There we go. And let's work from
left to right. So I'm going to start
with this petal here and just applying
the base coat. It's my color, and I am just following the outline
that I painted, and I am just applying the slightest color to my subject to my
flower, my pink flower. Here Okay. Now I'm going to leave this middle and go on
the right side here. I don't want to paint
both of them together, so take this one and paint here. I also want to start working
on my second flower. So I'm going to take the
color and start working on this side of the
flower here, right there. Okay. I'm going to leave
this middle part and come to this one over here. Right there. Okay. So now we have our
first coat of paint. I'm going to take my
medium size brush, this one, dip it into the water, and I'm going to take a little bit of the
darker color here. And start to add here. Whatever I see a middle tone. See, like here, I'm
seeing middle tone. I'm seeing middle tone here. At the bottom, I
see really dark. But here, it's middle. So I'm going to
start adding that. So let's add here. And my first coat is
still slightly wet. So when I'm adding this, a little bit darker color, which is my medium tone. Okay, it's blending
very, very softly. This is called wet
on wet technique. And I'm going to be adding a
little bit more color onto my paper and trying
to create some Dept. Yeah. Okay. Moving on to this flower over here. So see that because
we just painted our first layer and our
petal is still wet. You see how nicely and
softly the second layer of this darker color softly
blends onto the paper. Right there. I'm going to add some
more color here. Okay. I added some color
right here and I'm going to take clean water on my brush and just try to
blend it softly here. I dare Okay. Okay, now I'm moving
on quickly to my next flower before
the first layer dries. So yeah, it's actually
already dried up. So which is okay. We need to work with
what we have going on. So I'm still going to, you know, look at this I'm looking at this shadow here right
there. See that? A little bit darker. So I'm going to add that
and we'll try to blend it. So we are trying to
add the shadow here. I see it's, like, uh, yeah, like that. And now to make it softer, I'm going to just add some water on my brush and come back here. And towards the end where
Oops, that's too much water. Yeah. Okay. And I'm trying to
just soften this edge here. Okay. Now, moving on here
to the bottom. Um, yep, I see darker
shade here as well. So I'm going to just add
my darker shade here. Okay. Now, trying to add some shadow area here. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm just going to add some water on my brush and go back and try
to soften the edge. Yeah. Okay. There we have it. Okay. Now, let's move on to
our petal in the middle. So this one. I am going to take my lightest
shade and start adding it. Right there. So there is a petal, and there is a petal
behind the petal. So what I'm doing is
I'm doing the back one. I'm not doing the
front one right now. Okay? Okay. We have
our petal in the back. And here, this one, let's see. Yeah, let's do this. Here and Okay. I'm trying to be
careful not to blend because if I touch
the other petal, then it's going to mix, and then they don't look separate. So I try to be careful not
to blend both of them. That's why I have these brushes. They are very precise, so I can control them very well. Okay. Now, I've added
my lighter shade, my lightest shade here. Okay. And I'm going to go back, use my medium shade that I have chosen and try to. And right there. There we go. And I am adding wherever I'm
seeing the darker shade, I am applying my purple leg from Windsor and
Newton color here, but you can use any shade
that you have, which is, like, you know, a
little bit darker than your lightest color, okay? So it's okay if we don't
have the exact color. We are trying to
render the value here, and the perfect shed
does not matter. Um but but the value, right, how dark or how light it is, that's actually more important and it makes your
printing look beautiful. Um, you don't have
to worry if you don't have the
exact exact colors. You can use whatever
color you have. Okay, so I'm seeing the
dark shade here right there and we go
6. Paint Second Layer of Petals: All right. So now we
have our first layer. Now, let's add some
color to this petal, which we did not touch so far. So this is a smaller area, so I'm going to use
my smaller brush. This is my medium size brush, and I'm going to take
my lightest color, lightest color first, and
start to add it here. Right there. Okay. Then I'm going to
edit here also. Decide And we have covered this petal also. Now, let's move on
to the shading. So I want to start working on this petal over here because we just added the paste color. It's still wet, so I can drop in my medium tone right there. See that how beautifully
it's blending. So I'm going to add. There. Okay. And I don't want it
to come to this part here, I'm going to just take my brush. Wipe it. Okay. So that's I'm going
to soften it with some water plain water and soften the edge here. Okay. I also want to add some
shade in the middle here, which is what I see
in the picture. In the side. And so for your reference, I have added this photograph
in the resources. So you can take a look at that and see how this
one is spreading here. I'm going to take my clean
brush and wipe it. Okay. So now we have this
shape going on here. Now, here I see really, really dark dark shade. So I'm going to
take my medium tone and and add it here as I see it in the picture. So see right, sit there. This is what I'm
saying, seeing her. And I have my reference picture right in front of me
so I can, you know, keep taking a look at that
and try to paint this pretty, pretty pink flower, which
is my absolute favorite. All right. So added
some Color here. And now it's time
to soften the edge. So I'm just going to
take plain water in my brush, dab it, tap, dap dap slightly, and add. Here. Okay. Now, going back to here and add some more. I'm just dropping
some more color here. Okay. And I also want to add
some more color here. Like that. Okay. So as I'm seeing in my reference picture, I'm adding my colors
wherever I see. It's a little bit darker. Now softening it with
just plain water. Now we can move on to this side and work on this
side of the flour. This side is completely dry. I have to add some
water and let's see. I want to add some water and then start
adding my pigment. You. Okay. Moving on to the top side here. I hope you are enjoying this. I'm really enjoying
painting this flower, so I sometimes forget to talk. But, it's so beautiful. I just look at it and
just wonder how can this, you know, the flowers so pretty. Uh nature is amazing. Like, it inspires and it gives us so many
beautiful things. I learned so much from
nature, you know, we see these flowers
blooming in one season, and they're gone, and then
they come back again. So that's what teaches us like, Okay, we need to keep going and not every day is the same. And life has its up and down. So sometimes we bloom
like beautiful flowers, and sometimes, you know, we are not in the greatest mood, so so that's how it is. And I'm just I'm looking
at the reference, and I am adding the color. Okay. Now, I think I'm gonna
let this part dry and move to the the stem. So for that, I actually
did not think about it. Uh, let's see. What
color can we take? I'm thinking maybe
what should we do? I'm trying to see which
color would work. Mm mm mm hmm hmm. I I really don't think I
have that exact shade. Uh, let's see. If we can make something work. I have this white color, and I'm gonna take this here. And let's see if I mix this color and this
color, what do we get? Do we get something
that we can use? Let's see how does this look? I think we can work with this
for now for the base color. So let's use. Oh, this is white and
some hookers green light. And we have Okay, so we just gonna follow O stem and just
paint a base layer. Okay? And it doesn't have to be, you know, perfect match for now. For now, we are just using
this as a base color. So keep it light. Keep it light. We're going to add some
more depth into it. So we're just going to add
this just something to, you know, start working on this. All right, so we have
basically covered the stem.
7. Paint Third Layer to Add Details: Now that we have some
base color on our stem, let's go back and I'm going to add some of
Let's see this color. Let's see. What is it? Okay, brown. This burnt umber. So we have some burnt umber, and I'm going to take this, mix it a little bit,
and start adding I don't have the exact color, but I'm not going for that. I'm just looking at the
value and trying to match, you know, how dark or light. So just using my creative
freedom to render what I see. And I think you can
also do the same. You know, we don't need to match it exactly because
nature has so many colors, and we can't possibly
have all those. So we work with what
we have, right? So adding my bunt umber and I'm actually liking
what I'm seeing. So since my base
layer is still wet, it's actually blending
very nicely and softly. Okay. Alright, so we keep
adding bunt umber. And I see very, very dark shade here. So I'm not going to go
with that dark quite yet. I'm just going to add my
brown, my bunt umber. And I will come back to it later if I want to make it
a little bit more darker. But for now, this is what I'm trying to
add some mid tones. I deal. Also want to keep the shape. Very artistic, pretty, pretty. Okay. Okay. I think I like what
I'm doing here. I'm seeing a little bit darker
shade here in the bottom, so adding it here. Alrighty. And some more Okay, going back and I want to make it a little
bit more darker. So since it's still wet, I want to, like, put few dots so that
it blends nicely, and there we go. Mm hmm. Alright, so we have our
branch going on now. Let's move on to our flour. Okay. Now I want to start adding a little
bit of warm shade, which I see right here. See the spot here. I see
a little bit orange. I see a little bit
orangish here. So we're going to try to add that in our painting
right there. Okay. Beautiful. Okay. So now, wherever I see a
little bit of warm shade, I am adding it there. So here I realized that I have
not added my medium tone. Yeah, because I didn't want it to touch when the
battle was still wet. So I'm going here and adding
my darker medium tone here. Yeah. Okay. And softening the edge here
by adding just plain water. Dk here. Now I'm adding even more
darker shade which I see in the flower,
following the picture. I see it right there. See that darker shade. I'm going to add
that right there. And now, when I added
the dark sheet, I'm going to soften
the edge by adding just plain water in
my brush and tap it, and then here come and come to the edge
where I just added the color and drop some water and just blend it blend it. Trying to blend here. Okay. Okay. Blending,
blending, blending here. Blending is the
name of the game. Okay, so now add some
water and blend. Right, right there. There we have nicely
blended petal here. Now, in the back,
I see this here. So I'm taking a little
bit of red colour. Trying to add it here like that. Okay. I took some
red here and added. Right there. Yeah. Okay. Moving on to Let's
do this part here. I don't want to touch
the wet part and make them blend with each
other because it's wet, and if I work on this one,
it's gonna get muddy. So let's move on
to this one here, and I'm using the red which
is in my brush and then here. Now, I take some water, tap it in my brush, and go back here. Okay. I want to add some pigment here 'cause I see it a little bit darker in
my preference picture. Okay. Alright. Blending it with plain water. Okay. Now I'm going to move on to this petal
and let this one dry.
8. Paint Fourth Layer Create Depth: Okay, so now we are going to work on this petal over here. So I'm going to
take some water in my brush and add it here. Trying to make this surface wet, soaken so I can add
another layer here. Okay. So because I made it wet, I'm able to drop in this color. And and it's blending nicely. It's very soft. That's exactly how
I want it to look. So all good. Okay, now we're going to add some more color in the bottom because I see
it's really, really dark. So we need to notch it up I can even try to add some red color here to make it
even more intense. Okay. Let's continue to work on this. And I am adding more
darker color over here. Over here. Okay. Okay, so I added
this tiny bird here. I'm gonna wipe my brush and
pick up some color from here. So just taking picking up
some color right there. Like that. Okay. Now, continue to add
color here at the bottom, because it's really dark and we need to make it a
little bit darker, softening the edge here. I'm now also adding some
red to make it even more intense and warmer,
and it's fun. So let's add. Now, this side, we need to do some Me shading. So I see this is
very sharp here. Let's make it softer, so just plain water in
the brush and add here. So doing this, make it softer. Okay. Moving on to
the this bud here. I'm going to make it a
little bit wet right there. And let's try to add the colour. Yep. Beautiful. Okay. I see that this color is traveling into this part,
which I don't want. I'm gonna just take my brush and wipe it while I still can, which is actually good I anyway need to lift
some color from here. Okay. So this is
looking good. Okay. Moving on here. So this part looks a little bit. Um, I would say no color. So let's add some
color over here. Okay. This is good. Moving on to the petal here. I'm going to add some
water to make this wet. And now I'm gonna
drop in some purple. Add some plain water. Blend it. Okay. Okay. Moving on
to this part now. I'm going to add
another shade here. But since I'm working on
these petals individually, I'm letting them dry
and coming back, so we can see how
they are separated. If we don't do that, they all will look muddy
and blended together, and then you don't
see that separation. So now we have this side going to move to the
other side here. Okay. Very nice. I'm liking what I'm doing here. Alrighty. So now. Let's add some more depth
using another color here. So I'm adding some red to
make this even more intense. Okay. Okay.
9. Paint Fifth Layer to Add Shadows: Don't add, that's fine. I'm just doing it
because I can see it. And it's okay if you don't want to add that. It's totally fine. And I am seeing that. Okay, so now I'm going to add some more red color here. Right there. As I see in the picture. I'm going to blend it
right right there. And see very dark shade here. So this very dark shade over
here when I added some red. I'm gonna drop in some purple. Okay. So let's add some final details to this painting and see
what we can fix here. So I am seeing that there is a slight very likely I can
see this petal here. I'm going to add here. Even if you don't
add, that's fine. I'm just doing it
because I can see it and and it's okay if you don't want to add
that. It's totally fine. And I am seeing that. Okay, so now I'm going to add
some more red color here. Right there. As I see in the picture. And I'm going to blend
it right right there. And see very dark shade here. So this very dark shade over
here when I added some red. I'm going to drop
in some purple.
10. Paint Shadows, Highlights & Final Details: Okay, so it's time to
add some final details. We are going to look at our
picture one more time and see where can we add the
highlights and fix anything. I see there is a lighter
color here, here, here and here and here.
And a little bit here. Here. I'm going to
keep that in mind and continue the
finishing touches. So the tape is coming
out here. Just fine. All right. So I have a
I have my colors here. Let's see. Okay. I am looking at the shape of my petal here, and I think this could
be fixed a little bit. So let's add and I think I it's a
little bit dark here, so I'm gonna lift color. Yeah. And see how
nicely it blended and was able to fix
fix the shape here. Alright. Now, let's
see what we can fix. I'm going to take a very,
very diluted mixture, and this is my medium brush. Let's take a thinner one. Okay. And I'm going to start with a very
thin outline here. Okay. I'm going to add the outline
with the diluted paint. And if I feel like
it's too strong, I'm going to take my brush
and soften the edge. So here Like that. Okay. Moving on. Right here. You see, it's
really, really dark, so I'm gonna take
my brush and add some water and just
blend it very softly. So there we go. Okay. I'm also going to
add an outline here. Right there. Okay. I think I can add a little bit here and I can add a
little bit of color here. Okay. So this looks pretty good. Now let's move on
to this one here. Yeah, let's add the color. Okay. This clove is very close
to the actual color. So that's why it's going
to kind of blend. Okay. Alrighty. Now it's time to
add the highlights. So I have my white gouache here. I'm mixing it. And let's see. I'm gonna take
medium size brush. This one. And let's go and add
some highlights. We'll start from here. And see some white here. I also see white here. See some white here. A little bit of white here. Okay. Mm. Moving on to this
petal over here. Okay. Hmm. A little bit here. And so you see some
white light color here. Okay. And let's add here. Okay. And right here. Okay. Now, I think our
petal is pretty good to go. And we can start adding
the highlight on the stem. So I'm going to add Some highlight here
and there we go. A little bit here. There we go. Okay. One
last thing I want to do is that I see here, we have very light shade. When I see in the painting, I see a darker shade. So I'm going to add a
little bit of color here. So this is, you know, something I observed just now. Now I've added the color. Now I'm going to soften it
with water right there. Nice. And now I'm going to add a little bit of shape here. What I see in the picture,
something like that. Maybe it's a fold. I see some brownish
color here as well. So I'm going to add there a
little bit of brown here. So I'm going dat, dat, dat, and a little bit of
brown here as well. Okay. So there we have it. I think we're almost
about to be done. I'm going to just
take final look and see if there
is anything else. I think I have to add a
little bit of brown color here as well, and inside here. So, my brush is super dry. I'm just adding darker
brown shade dots here. So that's how it is
looking for now. Then I think we are done. Let's remove the tape. And see how the final
composition is looking like. Alright. So there we have it. I hope you enjoy painting
this as much as I did. And I tried to make
it as simple as, you know, you as a beginner. So enjoy this, try
make your own version. You know, you could have
some variation also. And I hope that
we learn together many more classes and do a lot of botanical
work together. So bye.
11. Get Feedback from Me: Okay, so hope you
have enjoyed creating this beautiful floral
watercolor composition with me. And if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me in
the comments section, in the resources section. Anyway, you can find
me on Skillshare, and you can type your question. You can upload your picture
and look at it and see if I have there is
anything that I can add as a comment
for your improvement. So please feel free to share and I'll be so happy to
see what you have created, and I've tried my best to
make it very, very simple. And if you have any questions, I would love to answer
you and I would love to see what
you have created. So please reach out in the
comment section. Thank you.
Nidhi Namdev, nnartcreations
